


Barefoot Over Broken Glass

by Ultrageekatlarge



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2104176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultrageekatlarge/pseuds/Ultrageekatlarge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been three weeks since the helicarriers, and Sam’s not doing too great.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barefoot Over Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> I did a bunch of reading on PTSD and soldiers and such, but I mean – I am no expert. So if anything in here seems wrong or off, just tell me and I’ll see what I can do to fix it. I wrote this in like, an hour and a half, so chances are there's wrong stuff.
> 
> But basically I was reading a bunch of fic and it occurred to me that Sam Wilson always has his shit together, and I thought I’d like to try something else.
> 
> So here is the fic where Sam’s dealing with his own PTSD in the midst of Steve’s angst-ocean.

Here’s the thing:  Sam Wilson had managed to leave behind his battle field.  But here’s another thing: The battle field found him again anyway.

It’s been three weeks since the helicarriers.

He’s not doing so good.

\--

He and Steve have been on the road for just short of a month, crisscrossing the country, following ghost stories and rumors as they search for Bucky Barnes.

Steve spends his time flip-flopping back and forth between three basic moods.  The first is a brooding quiet, mostly spent with his jaw clenched.  He stares out the window listlessly and unfocused if he’s in the passenger seat, and if he’s driving, he clenches the steering wheel tight enough that his knuckles turn white and Sam worries he’ll break the thing.  The second is planning, pouring over maps, coming up with strategies and ideas and ways that they can maybe try and draw Bucky to them.  The third is animated talking, story after story about the war in Germany with Bucky and the Howling Commandos, about Brooklyn in the forties when it was he and Bucky against the world, any story at all that has anything to do with Bucky Barnes.

After a while, Sam isn’t sure which one he prefers.

But they all start to put him on edge.

\--

That’s the thing about PTSD – it never actually goes away. 

It fades.  It quiets.  It settles and it’s not that he ever forgets that it’s there, it’s just that Sam’s become so used to the tamed version of it that he stops actively noticing it after a while.

Until one day some bozo runs past him yelling, “On your left!” and the next thing he knows, he’s punching black op soldiers off of bridges, he’s having his mechanical wings torn from his back and he’s being kicked out into the air without anyway to fly, he’s being shot at and having a steering wheel torn clear out of his hands.  He’s back in it from out of fucking no where, and it’s his choice, but he’s back in it and that means he’s back to everything that comes with it.

Back to the paranoia, back to checking-checking-checking the locks, back to positioning himself so his back is always to the wall.  Back in to it all.

\--

Sam doesn’t think he’s slept through the night in a week.

He sits with his back to the headboard, knees drawn up to his chest.  Breathe in, one-two-three, breathe out, one-two-three, breathe in, one-two-three, out, one-two-three…

There is a clanging sound as someone slams a dumpster shut outside.

Sam flinches, violent enough that he almost topples off and onto the floor.  On the bed to his right, Steve snuffles slightly and turns over onto his other side, facing away from Sam.  Sam gets up and walks into the bathroom – on his way, he checks that the chain is latched and the lock turned on the entrance to the room.  Then he goes into the bathroom, shuts the door, and locks it behind him.  He sinks down to the cool, white tiles.  He leans back against the counter, palms pressed down flat. 

It feels a little bit like walking barefoot over shattered glass, only the sensation is all over his body.  The quiet becomes a living thing around him, pulsing and growing, deafening somehow, and the only thing to punctuate it is his own uneven breathing.  He starts counting out inhales and exhales again.

In, one-two-three, out, one-two –

He double checks that the bathroom door is locked.

In, out.  In, out.

It’s going to be better in the morning.

He’ll make sure of it.

\--

The first night home after his first tour of duty, Sam couldn’t sleep.  He spent the night tossing and turning before finally flopping out of bed and onto the floor.  He lay there, staring at the ceiling, and sometime later his phone buzzed.

Not even the floor is hard enough, the text from Riley reads, fuck me.

Sam laughs, and he’s still awake, but it’s okay.  For a second in the dark, it’s okay.

\--

“I woke up last night.  You were in the bathroom for a while,” Steve says.  He’s been more brooding than anything else today, and this is the first full sentence he’s said in hours.  “Everything okay?”

Steve has a brainwashed best friend to find.  Steve has an entirely new millennia to adjust to and understand.  Steve is still coping with the fact he fought in World War Two.  Steve, Sam thinks, has enough to deal with, even without piling Sam’s shit on top of it.  So Sam smiles, laughs, and says, “Yeah.  Just kind of backed up is all.  I’d tell you about it, but I don’t think we’re at that level yet.”

Steve laughs at that, and Sam tells himself it’ll be fine.

\--

It isn’t fine.

\--

It’s the first panic attack he’s had in years.

They’re at a Shell Station outside of Tallahassee when he trips over a crack in the sidewalk, trips like an uncoordinated teenager and almost hits the ground.  Steve laughs and cracks a joke, but Sam doesn’t hear it.  The almost-fall was enough, the swoop in his stomach of tipping forward, and for a terrible, jolting moment he isn’t in a gas station parking lot – he’s spinning through the air without his wings, air knocked out of him from when the Winter Soldier’s heavy boot had collided with his chest.

“Bathroom,” he manages to choke out, and staggers through the door.  The floor is filthy, the walls grimy, but after he locks the door – it takes three tries, his hands are shaking so badly – Sam collapses to the ground and buries his face in his hands.  He can’t breathe.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s still spinning out of control, he’s over the desert, Riley’s looking over at him and smiling and then Riley’s falling and Sam can’t _catch him –_

The sob is strangled and muffled by his hands, but it still springs out into the air.  He forces his attention to the sour, unclean smell of the restroom.  He peels his eyes open and stares at the unwashed toilet, and with a great shove makes himself think and question how long since it’s been cleaned.  He listens to the chirping of birds just beyond the door.  It takes a while – longer than a trip to the bathroom should – but Sam manages to wrangle his breathing to something resembling normal.

He staggers to his feet and tries not to think about the germs that have probably become embedded in the denim of his jeans.  Sam splashes water on his face, and as he’s patting dry with a paper towel, cleaning his face and trying to mop up the remains of the sweat he’d broken into, someone knocks on the door.

“Occupied,” he bites out.

“Sam?” Steve says.  “It’s me.  Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says.  He isn’t.  He will be.  He has to be, if only for Steve’s sake.  “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Okay,” says Steve.

Sam stays in the bathroom another few minutes, and then walks out.  He has to force himself to relax his shoulders, to unclench his hands from fists.

Steve holds up a bag.  “I got you some Gatorade,” he said.

“Red?” asks Sam.  He hopes that the cheer in his voice doesn’t sound as forced to Steve as it does within his own head.

“Of course,” says Steve.  He’s frowning.  “You were in there a while,” he says.  “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“That hotdog I ate for lunch is disagreeing with me like you would not believe,” he says and exaggerates a grimace as he slaps Steve on the shoulder and walks to the car.  Once he’s past Steve, the easy good mood drops from his face and he can feel the cold sweat still prickling up and down his back.  He leans against the driver’s side door for a moment, staring at his haggard reflection in the glass.  He plasters on a smile and holds out the keys, turning around to face Steve again.  “You mind driving?”

“Of course not,” says Steve and he takes the keys.  There’s a glint to his eyes, like he’s trying to put pieces together and almost has a full puzzle.

“Let’s get going, then,” says Sam and crosses over to the other side.  He climbs in, buckles his seatbelt, uncaps his Gatorade, checks his seatbelt, and doesn't make eye contact with Steve.

“Must’ve been a hell of a hotdog,” says Steve.

The lie almost catches in Sam’s throat.  “The worst,” he says.

Steve hums in answer, and then neither of them say anything for a long while.  Sam can feel Steve watching him, though, from the corner of his eyes.  Sam takes a long drink from his Gatorade and tells himself that this was a onetime thing and this won’t happen again.

“I ever tell you,” says Steve, and apparently it’s going to be story time this afternoon, “About the time I got the flu and puked in the neighbor’s window box?”

“No,” says Sam.  He barely listens as Steve starts to tell the story.  He leans his head against the window and lets the words wash over him, lets his eyes unfocus, and nods at all the right moments.  Again, he tells himself that the panic attack was an isolated incident.  It won’t happen again.  It can’t happen again.  He will not let it.

\--

It happens again.

\--

The first time Sam had a panic attack was at Riley’s funeral.

They lowered the coffin into the ground, and even though he was standing in a wide open field, spotted with nothing but headstones and a few trees, Sam was penned in.  He couldn’t breathe right.  Everything was too bright and somehow fading at the same time.  They dumped a shovelful of dirt into the hole, onto the coffin, _over Riley_ , and Sam felt like he was the one being buried beneath mud and weeds, never to see the sky again.

Everything spiraled, and the next thing he knew concretely is that he’s sitting on the damp grass, head between his knees, while Riley’s grandmother rubbed circles between his shoulder blades.  “Hush, hush,” she said, again and again.  “Hush, hush.”

\--

It happens a third time, too.

\--

Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, Sam wonders what’s going to happen if they do find Bucky, and he comes home with them.

He wonders if he’ll get pushed off to the side.  If it’ll start gradual, with visits and hang outs spreading further and further apart until they’re replaced by phone calls, those fading out to texts until there’s nothing at all.  He wonders if it’ll be more abrupt than that.  He tells himself that when – that if it happens, it’ll be fine.  He got along fine before meeting Steve, after all.  He’ll be able to remember how to do it again.

He will.

It doesn’t help how people keep telling him how great it is, that he’s helping Captain America like this.  Sam doesn’t know how to explain that it’s not like that – that for every step he carries Steve, Steve’s carrying him two more, even if he doesn’t know it.  Symbiosis, he thinks it’s called.  A mutually beneficial relationship between two people.

So what happens, Sam wonders as he checks the lock on the hotel door and makes sure the windows are latched, what happens when Steve has someone else to lean on, someone else to lean on him in return?

\--

They have a pile of books that’s forever growing.  There’s volumes on dealing with veterans as the return home, on how to help soldiers who have spent time as POWs.  There are at least three about traumatic brain injuries.  There’s one about helping loved ones move on from abusive situations.  Sam knows that Steve’s read all of them at least twice.

He starts noticing that when Steve’s reading them now – especially when he’s reading the ones about when someone close to you has PTSD –he has taken to shooting Sam small, darting glances when he thinks Sam isn’t looking.

Sam decides to ignore that and deal with it later.

\--

This time is behind a Tim Horton’s in Alberta.  Sam’s not even sure what set it off, this time.

The panic sets in, squeezing Sam's chest.  He can’t breathe, and he leans against the side of the building and thinks about the rough brick beneath his palms, the cold humidity of the air, heavy with the promise of rain about to break.  He narrows in on the smell of grease and pine trees that thickens in his nostrils and threatens to choke him.  He tries to ground himself, tries to remember that grounding isn’t the same as being stuck without wings, makes himself breathe, and breathe, and breathe, pressing his forehead against the wall.

He gets a hold of himself, turns around, and finds Steve waiting and holding out a water bottle.  “Another bad hotdog?” Steve asks.

Sam takes the bottle, drains it, and then says, “I’m fine.”

“You know,” says Steve.  “If there’s ever anything you want to talk –”

“I said I’m fine,” Sam snaps, harsher than he meant.  But everything’s still sharp around the edges, and he wants nothing more than to curl up into a ball and ignore the world for a little while.  “Let’s go find a hotel.”

\--

It turns out that people shooting at him in the middle of DC has really screwed with Sam’s head.

He knows he needs to deal with this.

He’s just putting it off until there’s time for it.

\--

Sam comes back to the hotel to find Steve sitting and waiting for him, a bottle of beer sitting on the table.  Sam presses his lips into a line, considering the situation laid out before him.  “We, uh,” he says, and rubs the back of his neck.  “We having a party or something?  Because I think you’re going to need a few more of those.”

“It’s for you,” says Steve.  “A peace offering.”

“Were we fighting?” Sam asks.  Even with how distracted he’s been, he thinks he’d have noticed getting into an argument with Steve.

“Nah,” says Steve.  “Maybe peace offering is the wrong phrase.  Let’s try an apology.”

“I can’t remember being upset with you,” says Sam.  He sits down.  He presses his hands against the denim of his jeans and can’t remember if he locked the door behind him or not.  He forces himself to smile and says, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re breaking up with me or something.”

“Or something,” says Steve.  “We need to talk.”

“Not helping with the getting dumped vibe,” says Sam.  He takes a beer, twists the cap off, and doesn’t drink any of it.  He thinks he locked the door.  He wants to get up and make sure.  One of his legs is bouncing, and Sam doesn’t remember when that started.

“I promise I’m not dumping you,” says Steve, and Sam’s a little embarrassed at the relief that shoots through him at that.  Steve takes a breath.  He doesn’t say anything.  He looks nervous, his hands folded in front of him on the table and thumbs in constant motion.

Sam makes it about thirty seconds before he says, “Look, if you want to talk, you’re going to have to be the one to kick this off.”

“I know,” says Steve.  He sighs, then says, “I’m really worried about you, Sam.  You’ve been acting off for a while now, and it’s not healthy.”

Oh.  Sam sets his beer down.  He thinks he should have seen this coming.  “I’m fine,” he says.

“I don’t think you are,” says Steve.  He leans forward slightly.  “You aren’t acting like yourself.”

“We haven’t even known each other for six months,” says Sam.  The words are harsh and biting to his own ears, and he’s not sure where it’s coming from, the sudden hot and bubbling anger that’s in the middle of his chest.  “You don’t know what me ‘acting like myself’ is.”

“Yeah, I do.  You know I do,” says Steve.

Sam just shakes his head and leans back, disengaging in anyway he can – from the look on Steve’s face, he knows exactly what game Sam’s trying to play.

“See?  That’s what I mean.  It’s okay if you’re not – I mean, I feel like you’re trying to bottle yourself up on my account or something,” says Steve.   “I feel like I’m making things worse when you don’t talk to me about what’s going on with you.”

Any other situation, and Sam would be so proud of Steve for whipping out those ‘I’ statements.  Right now, it only severs what carefully hoarded control Sam has left.  “Yeah, well, I feel pissed off when you start acting all holier than thou,” says Sam.  It’s like he’s watching this unfold from somewhere near the ceiling, and he can’t seem to haul himself in.  “Can’t you mind your own business for just one fucking second?”

“Sam,” says Steve.  He doesn’t look hurt, or defensive, or anything – nothing but that same, steady earnestness, ready and prepared to weather whatever Sam throws at him.  Sam’s heartbeat is suddenly loud, heavy and thudding and deafening, in his ears, and the walls of the hotel room are pressing in on him from all directions.

“I’m going for a walk,” Sam says.  He expects Steve to stop him.

“Okay,” says Steve instead.  “I’ll be here.”

Sam can’t be in the room anymore, and when he all but flees, the door slams behind him.

\--

His first night home after his second tour of duty, Sam lay on the floor.  He held his phone in his hand, and he stared at the screen.  Every time the backlight of it dimmed, he hit the power button so that the touchscreen flared bright again.  For hours, until the light of the sunrise started to bleed over the edge of the windowsill and onto the floor, Sam lay there – refresh, refresh, refresh.

No new texts.

\--

Sam’s been stomping around Chicago, aimless and wandering, for the better part of two hours when the anger drains out of him in a sickening rush that leaves him drained and shaky.  He leans against the wall and listens to the traffic, the people, the sounds of the city living and thriving around him.  There’s a quivering kind of shame as he thinks about how he snapped at Steve, and it’s with heavy, dragging steps that Sam heads back to the hotel.

Steve’s waiting for him outside, leaning against the hood of the car.

As Sam walks up, Steve says, “You left your phone.”

“Sorry,” says Sam.

“No, it’s fine,” says Steve.  “I was just a little – it’s fine.”

Sam leans next to him next to the car.  “About before, too,” says Sam.  “I’m sorry.  I was out of line.”

“Maybe,” says Steve.  “I probably shouldn’t have ambushed you about it.  I – look, cards on the table.  I’m worried about you, alright?  I don’t have a lot of friends, and with everything with Bucky,” Steve pauses, voice cracking slightly, and he takes a breath.  “Anyway.  Not a lot of friends.  And I gotta look after the ones I have, okay?”

Sam’s kneejerk reaction is to say that he doesn’t need any looking after, but he also knows that wouldn’t be entirely true.  Besides – Sam glances sideways at Steve – he thinks that maybe sometimes Steve needs someone to take care of, especially with Bucky in the wind, and he thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible, to let himself be that person.  “Hey,” he says.  “Steve.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks.

“I’m, uh,” says Sam.  He shoves his hands into his pockets to hide that they’re shaking and clears his throat.  “I’m not doing so great.”

“I know.  And that’s alright,” says Steve.  He slings an arm over Sam’s shoulders and leaves it there.  For once, Sam doesn’t shudder away from the heavy feeling of being grounded.  Steve doesn’t smile, but his eyes crinkle in a way so that he might as well be.  Steve says, “I’m not doing so great, either.  But we’re going to be okay.  Okay?”

Sam swallows.  “Sure,” he says, and doesn’t bring up that he’s been down this road before.  “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me on tumblr if you'd like - bonesbuckleup.tumblr.com


End file.
